Chapter 10

 

“Wherein pleasure is often a sin, and sin….”

Dev helped John clean up his cuts and bruises, though there would be a deal of mending for the women to do to repair the split seams and tears in the clothes he removed.

Once John had settled in the kitchen with a glass of milk and a plate of shortbread—well, he was only ten—Dev looked around for Charity.

On his second visit to the kitchen Mrs Baxter looked up from skinning the rabbits, a shrewd glint in her eyes. “You’ll not find her. If she’s gotten herself in a pelter, she’ll go down to the river until her temper settles.”

“Oh,” Dev said, a little unnerved at being seen to be looking for her. “She won’t be back for lunch?”

“Doubt it.” Mrs Baxter left the rabbit and washed her hands. “Why don’t you take her something to eat? Apologise for whatever it was you said to set her off.”

“Apologise?” Dev baulked at the idea. He’d never apologised for anything in his life before. “She was wrong!”

Mrs Baxter tutted at him and shook her head. “Maybe so,” she replied, giving him a stern look. “But she does the best she can, for everyone.”

Dev watched as she filled a wicker basket with bread and cheese, slices of pie, and a jug of ale.

“She’s not usually quite so unsettled as of late, but she wants everybody happy and healthy, and she loves this place to her last breath. Leaving it is tearing her apart.”

Dev frowned at the jagged feeling in his heart as Mrs Baxter held the basket out to him and for a moment he considered refusing. This was not his affair. Miss Kendall had said as much. Why should he care?

Mrs Baxter raised an eyebrow at him and, feeling much put upon, Dev reached out, took the basket, and stalked out of the kitchen. He found her down by the river as Mrs Baxter had predicted. By the time he reached her his boots were sodden. It never ceased to amaze him that, no matter how dry the summer, Dartmoor was always wet and boggy somewhere. The moors were treacherous, even to those who knew them well. It was all too easy to get lost and wander into a moss-covered bog. Sometimes you got nothing more than wet feet, other times the moss might conceal a granite crevice so deep a man could disappear without even a splash and never be seen again. Yet it was beautiful. Beautiful and dangerous, like the gleam on a sword, and it bred stubborn, hardy, wilful creatures, like the hot-tempered hellion sitting on the rock down there.

Dev sighed, noting her hunched posture, her knees brought up to her chest and her arms wrapped about them. Her head was resting on her knees, her face turned away from him. He wondered if she would continue to rant at him as he drew closer, and found himself shocked when she just looked up, her eyes full of despair, and turned away again.

“I brought you some lunch,” he said, hovering and feeling ill at ease. He had no right being here. How the devil was he supposed to make her feel better? Yet the desire to do so crawled beneath his skin. She should be mad as hell and spitting fire. Instead she looked like a rag doll that had lost all its stuffing.

He sat down beside her and opened the basket, at a loss for anything else to do.

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

“Oh, come on,” he said, forcing a light-hearted note into the words he was far from feeling. “You’re always hungry.”

She snorted but didn’t comment, didn’t grow angry at the teasing insult or retaliate. Dev sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finding he meant it.

He was still certain he’d been in the right, but he could have been tactful about it, and he couldn’t bear to see the misery in her eyes. It made the ache in his chest grow heavier, the guilt at what he was doing to this family harder and harder to ignore.

“What for?” she asked, her voice dull. “Being right?”

He felt his eyebrows rise at the admission and she cast him a rueful look, her eyes overly bright.

“I don’t know what to do for him.” she said, her voice catching.

The sound was like a metal lure, tearing through the tender flesh of his heart and pulling taut, dragging him out of the dark depths and towards the surface, towards something he didn’t know how to escape.

“He needs a father, he needs better than I can give him.” A fat tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away, the gesture angry and impatient though another just followed the same path. “They all do.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Dev replied, wishing he hadn’t come looking for her. He was out of his depth. He didn’t do comforting teary females, certainly not innocent teary females. “You’ve done everything you possibly could. More than anyone could expect of you.”

“But it isn’t enough.” She looked up at him then, her soft brown eyes so full of sorrow he wanted to take it all away—all the hurt, all the uncertainty—but he couldn’t. “I’m so frightened.”

The admission shocked him, knocking the breath from his lungs. He had thought Miss Kendall the indomitable, thick skinned type, a woman who wore sensible shoes and had chapped hands and knew how to run a farm. Except here she was, soft and so very beguiling.

Before he knew what he was doing—before the thought had even become a thought he could dismiss because it was beyond foolish—he had taken her in his arms. He gathered her up, swinging her legs around so she sat upon his lap, and laid her head on his shoulder. He stroked her hair, rubbed circles on her back and made the soft reassuring noises he used to soothe his horse as he let her cry. He had no idea if it was helping as he wasn’t used to being kind to weeping women, but it was the best he could do. There was nothing he could say. He could not pretend that it would be all right. He could not give her hope that the sale of the farm would not go through, for he knew better than anyone that it would. Guilt and desire warred in his chest and he had never hated himself more.

Hell and damnation.

He wished he’d never come here. He wished he was still in blissful ignorance of the heartache and trouble he was causing a family who had already seen their fair share of both. Yet, here he was, with the redoubtable Miss Charity Kendall clinging to him for support and comfort, when all along he was the devil at the heart of it all, the maggot writhing in the apple, spoiling everything.

“I-I’m sorry, I’ve made your shirt all wet,” she said, hiccoughing and trying to regain her composure.

“Not to worry, I have other shirts.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, contradicting him as ever. “That one’s Kit’s.”

Despite everything, he laughed. “Dreadful, argumentative creature,” he said, though there was warmth and affection behind the words.

She grinned and let out a little laugh herself, uncertain and somewhat shy as she looked up at him. Her gaze fell to his mouth and his body was at once on alert. He wondered if she had the slightest idea what she did to him, what she invited by looking at him so. Somehow, he doubted it.

Dev swallowed, promising himself he’d look away, that he’d break the tension that was simmering between them.

“I’ve never been kissed before, you know.”

Oh, hell.

The words were little more than a whisper, yet he felt them resonate in his bones, felt the spark they created and the flare of the tinder that was his dry, dusty, shrivelled up heart bursting into flames.

“You ought not say that,” he said, striving for control. He was the bastard who had caused her whole family’s trouble. He would not compound his villainy, he would not fall that far into the darkness.

“Why not? It’s true.” She stared at him, her eyes guileless, strangely trusting for all the animosity she had cast his way.

“Because it’s as good as an invitation,” he said, the words terse as frustration seethed beneath his skin. The sun warmed his back and, for once, the surrounding ground appeared soft, dry, and thick with moss. A comfortable bed for a tumble, and a willing partner… God, he wanted that.

“I know it is. I’m not as innocent as all that.” She smiled at him and the sight of it was like a blow to his guts, winding him.

“You shouldn’t….” he began, trying to find the strength to remove his arms from around her, to ignore the invitation in her eyes before he crossed an unforgiveable line. “You mustn’t….”

But she reached up, coiling her arms about his neck.

“Make me feel something,” she said, pleading in her voice. “I’m so tired of being frightened and angry and lonely. Make me feel something else, something new…. Please.”

It was the please that undid him, that unravelled any grasp on right or wrong. The lines had blurred now, and he no longer knew which way was up. He knew neither who he was nor wanted to be… except he knew that he wanted to be the one who kissed her first. He wanted to be the one she dreamed of and sighed over, the one who made her feel everything a kiss could be. He could give her that at least, as she’d asked for it. Just a kiss, nothing more. He’d make it sweet and tender and everything a first kiss ought to be, and then he’d let her go.

Dev reached out his hand, cupping her face and wishing his heart wouldn’t leap so as she turned into his caress, closing her eyes. Such trust, such a gift she would give him. He lowered his head, reminding himself of his intentions and holding his own desires in an iron grip. Sweetness, innocence, and tenderness, he reminded himself, but as his lips brushed hers the fire burning in his heart licked at his skin, blazing higher.

His breath caught, but still he held back, pressing his lips against hers again and again: a dozen kisses, light as a butterfly’s wing, every bit as tender as he’d promised. With careful touches, he encouraged her lips to part, his tongue inviting, teasing. Yet Charity was not the kind to shrink from life, from experience, or from a challenge. He ought to have known that by now.

She opened her mouth to him, pulling his head down towards her. The fire blazed brighter and hotter. It swept through his blood as he pulled her closer, wanting and needing, devouring everything in its path and burning for more, and the more he took the more she offered.

His grip on control slipped and his position on the rock was simply not good enough. He needed to touch her everywhere, every part of him with every part of her, nothing between them. The desire for it, for her, the burning need drove every coherent thought from his mind as he tumbled her onto her back on the moss. She drew a breath as she saw him move over her, braced on his arms, and he searched her gaze for any sign of doubt, waited for her to tell him no, but found nothing except longing.

“Kiss me,” she said, tugging at his neck.

Dev ducked his head, pressing his mouth to the tender skin beneath her ear and she moaned, arching beneath him. He trailed damp kisses down her neck, across her collar bone as one hand moved to cup her breast. Oh, sweet mercy, she was so soft, so pliant and willing, and he was as hard as the rocks that the river swept over. Desire was raging faster than the water rushing past them, tumbling through his thoughts and sweeping aside all his good intentions. All he could think of, the only thought in his head, was of sinking into her softness and wiping the sorrow from her eyes, watching her come apart for him, writhing beneath him as he loved her.

“Yes,” she murmured, her hands tangling in his hair. “Yes, David, make me forget it all.”

David?

The name that didn’t belong to him jarred and he stilled. He had wanted to be the one she sighed for, his name on her lips as she found her pleasure with him… except he was a fraud, an imposter, and quite possibly the most despicable bastard in the whole of the country.

He pushed away from her, getting to his feet and putting as much distance between them as he could.

“What is it?” she asked, bracing herself on her elbows as she stared at him, perplexed by his sudden retreat.

The movement pushed her breasts forward, straining the neckline of the simple gown she wore, and Dev cursed, rubbing a hand over his face as he tried to get a grip on his sanity. He dared to glance back at her. Desire flushed her cheeks, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her hair in disarray… she had never looked lovelier.

He cursed and strode down to the water, scooping up icy handfuls and throwing it over his face and the back of his neck. He wiped his face on his sleeve, aware that no amount of frigid water would put out the fire she had lit.

“David?”

“Don’t!” he snapped, not wanting to hear the evidence of his lies and duplicity upon the lips that had kissed him so tenderly. He snapped his mouth shut, hating himself for the confusion in her eyes. “Forgive me,” he said, the words rough. “You don’t understand what you are doing, what I want from you.”

“Of course I do,” she said, smiling at him. She held out her hand, inviting him back down to lie beside her. “Come back to me, David.”

“No!” He turned his back, that name twisting something dark and ugly in his gut, and he cursed whatever perverse pleasure fate had taken in landing him in this situation. Somewhere someone was having a good laugh at his expense, he was sure of it. “You’re sweet, Charity,” he said, closing his eyes against that sweetness as it threatened to unravel his sanity. “Sweet and innocent, and I’ll not ruin you when you haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re doing.”

She gave a huff of laughter, sitting up and favouring him with a look of indignation.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “I’m nothing of the sort and you know it. I may not have any experience with men, but I take the cow to be serviced by our neighbour’s bull. I do run a farm, if you hadn’t noticed. Procreation is rather an important part of it and I’m perfectly aware that the male of the species has one thing on its mind, no matter which species.” Her tone was tart and frustrated now, perhaps embarrassed now as her cheeks were scarlet. “I knew what I wanted, and so did you. I see no reason for you to get all chivalrous about it.”

She stalked off, brushing moss from her skirts as she went, and Dev stared after her, torn between rage and the desire to wrestle her to the ground and show her just what it was she’d been asking for. He gritted his teeth, reached for the untouched picnic basket and stalked after her.

“Well, forgive me for trying to be a gentleman,” he yelled after her. “I should have known not to have bothered on your behalf, Miss Hellion!”

She turned on him, hands on hips, dark eyes flashing. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Stop acting like you’re the injured party. You were just terrified I would cry all over you and beg you to marry me the minute we were done. Well, not on your life,” she threw at him, the sneer he was all too familiar with making a spectacular reappearance. “I’d not marry a worthless rake like you if you begged me. All I wanted was to forget my troubles, just for a few minutes, but no, that was beyond your capabilities.”

She folded her arms, glaring at him, and Dev wondered if he’d ever been more furious in his entire life. If he had, he couldn’t recall it.

He stalked up to her, so close they almost touched, and slid his hand behind her neck, lifting her head and making her gasp, her eyes widening.

“If I’d have taken you as you’d asked, it would have taken a damn sight more than a few minutes,” he said, the words hard, angry, and full of repressed desire. “I was trying to have a care for you, to not take advantage of the situation when you were upset and vulnerable, but if you are so desperate for a good tupping, by all means lie down and spread your legs. I’m only too happy to oblige.”

The slap was hard and ferocious and made his skin burn, but at least it knocked some sense into him. With regret he watched as she ran back up the hill towards the farm and wondered where the hell he’d gone wrong.